Monsieur X, a cover-up? She thought back to Thiely’s comments at l’école Militaire—les barbusses, paramilitary types who did the dirty jobs, leaving no trace so others kept their hands clean. But keeping it covered up, shutting down a police investigation—that meant a lot of corruption and bribery.
So if her father, as a police officer in 1978, had suspected who was behind the hits and been taken off the case … the only thing he could do was protect Drina and Nicu, tell them to run. Her father had been drummed out of the force not long after; had that been another loose end in this same tangle? A loose end tied up more finally when he was killed in Place Vend?me?
“Did Roland mention the name Tesla? Or Fifi?”
Fran?oise shook her head. “Roland said, ‘I’m next, and if I tell you any more, you are, too.’ ” Her shoulders heaved with sobs. “He told me that on the phone. Why didn’t I believe him?”
“This Monsieur X, Fran?oise, any idea who he could be?”
The lit fa?ade of Gare du Nord emerged through the mist.
Fran?oise shook her head. “That bastard? If I knew, I’d tell you.”
AFTER THEY HAD dropped the Delavignes at Gare du Nord, Aimée insisted the taxi circle the ?le Saint-Louis twice before letting her out. The lights misted over the Seine and leaves blew along the quai as she checked for a surveillance detail, a lone watcher. After what had happened to Roland Leseur, she couldn’t be too careful. But the few parked cars showed no window vapor, no figure standing on the corner with an orange-tipped cigarette. The Seine was deserted except for one long barge, colored lights strung on its prow, which sent soft ripples up the river. She still had the taxi let her off around the corner and tipped him extra. She punched the code into the side-street door that led to a back passage from which she accessed her own courtyard.
In the apartment, she set down her keys, kicked off her heels inside her paneled foyer. Sniffed. Warm smells of laundry and … garlic?
SHE’D ONLY CALLED once to check on Chloé since Babette had left the office that afternoon. “Babette, désolée,” she called. Merde, it was after eleven. She was tired, so tired she almost dropped onto the recamier right there.
She noted folded piles of baby clothes, heard Brahms’s “Lullaby” playing softly on the radio she’d found at the flea market.
Babette grinned from the kitchen. “Pot-au-feu?”
Babette, what a jewel!
“Sorry I’m late.” She tasted a bite. Heaven. “Don’t remember seeing ‘master chef’ on your résumé.”
“Not me. It was Beno?t, Gabrielle’s tonton. He brought it over,” she said. “But I took down the recipe.”
Fighting down a little disappointment, Aimée smiled at Babette. “I’d say he likes you.”
“My fiancé wouldn’t go for that,” she said, gathering up her sports pack. “He’s back from naval maneuvers in Toulon next month.”
Toulon. Who was it that had mentioned Toulon recently?
“A nod to the wise,” said Babette. “Beno?t’s returned from Cambodia for an ethnologie-archéologie position at the Sorbonne. He’s very single.” Babette winked.
Aimée felt her neck flush.
In bed that night, she tossed and kicked the silk duvet.
She was exhausted, yet sleep eluded her. She flicked on the lamp beside the baby monitor. Took out the blue file she’d found in Gerard Delavigne’s study and stared at the photo. Studied it. From the monogrammed towels, standard furnishings definitely a hotel room: a shirtless young man in his late teens wearing white bell-bottoms and platform boots, à la Saturday Night Fever, leaned over a man in bed. There was something familiar about the man, who was grinning, his middle-aged paunch partially covered by a sheet. She looked closer, gasped. Why hadn’t she recognized the face of one of the era’s most powerful politicians?
His face had graced every newspaper of the day, and here he was caught in flagrante delicto, or whatever they called it. Explosive if it were leaked to the public. So this was the man, long dead, subject of the tell-all memoir … She turned it over, looking at the note on the back again: Insurance via Pascal. Also in the folder she’d stolen was a sheet of yellow legal paper with a few names written under the heading COMMISSAIRE BLAUET.
A police commissaire? Her mind jumped to the implications: a huge cover-up involving ministries and the police. More important than money—power. Cover-ups necessitated strings of payoffs. Supposing Pascal had tried blackmail, but had bitten off more than he could chew?
Miles Davis, curled at her feet, stirred on the duvet. She propped up her feather pillow and hit Martine’s number.
“So how’s Beno?t’s pot-au-feu?” Martine asked.
Martine amazed her sometimes. “How do you know, telepathy?”
“Babette,” she said. “I called about my press pass, and to say goodnight to Chloé. I heard about your leakage incident. Don’t worry—he probably found it attractive. Men, for some strange reason, like to protect. They enjoy a minor freakout now and then.”
“Minor freakout, Martine? Major, I’d call it. And leaking all over my agnès b. blouse. I almost died.”
“No worries,” she said. “The Italian cousin’s not bad as backup.”
“Backup? This Beno?t couldn’t even look at me, and no wonder. A raccoon-eyed mess, unbuttoned, stockings in shreds.”
“Not to mention neurotic,” Martine added. “But remember he has a sister—I’m sure she has her moments, too.”
Aimée heaved a long sigh. Right across the courtyard, and a hunk. How often did that happen?
Little whistles of sleep came from the baby monitor. For once Chloé slept and she couldn’t. Talk about bad timing.
“Melac, that snake, threatened me today. He was at the lawyer’s appointment I missed.”
“Missed it? How could you? And give him ammunition?”
Moonlight filtered through the window over her mauve silk duvet.
She explained that she’d been hijacked by the staff at l’H?tel Matignon, and hadn’t much choice in the matter.
“Not so bad, Aimée. You rescheduled with the lawyer, non? What’s really up?”